Montreal Space Symposium

Launched in April 2018, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will soon be releasing its first data. The mission will provide us with the largest sky survey of transiting exoplanets. To confirm these planets and find their characteristics the SPIRou spectrograph operating at the Canada-France Hawaii Telescope will acquire information about the planet's mass through velocimetry. TESS, SPIRou and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are meant to compliment each other in the study of exoplanets. Data visualization tools are therefore crucial for the observation planning of these ground-based and space-based missions. Throughout a summer internship at the Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx), several tools were developed to facilitate the data visualization and data analysis with TESS and SPIRou.

The High-Contrast Imaging Balloon System (HiCIBaS) is a proof-of-concept balloon-borne telescope project that had four objectives: develop and test a custom low-order wavefront sensor (LOWFS), measure and gather data on wavefront instabilities and errors at high altitudes in the visible spectrum, develop and test a sub-milli-arcsecond pointing system, and give high-altitude flight heritage to the LOWFS, deformable mirror (developed by Iris AO) and EMCCD cameras (provided by Nüvü Cameras). It was developed by Université Laval, along with numerous collaborators, and was launched under the CSA’s STRATOS program in August of 2018 from Timmins, Ontario. The “big picture” goal of this project was to characterize the atmosphere and validate the instruments, techniques and concepts used so that they can be employed for future exoplanet-studying missions.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a flagship observatory whose launch is now scheduled to the spring of 2021. The unprecedented light gathering power of JWST, with its 6.5-meter foldable primary mirror, will enable the study of extremely faint objects such as first-light galaxies and transiting exoplanet atmospheres. Its four science instruments are designed to observe in the infrared spectrum from 0.7 to 28 microns in about 17 different imaging and spectroscopic observing modes. Canada, through the Canadian Space Agency, is responsible of the Fine Guidance Sensing (FGS - the guider) and its piggy-backed science instrument, the Near-Infrared imager and slitless spectrosgraph (NIRISS). I will give an overview of the observatory and give a project status.